DianeB

@T. W. Hello, Terry! Welcome to the forum and the course! In the beginning, memorizing the music is not the point. It's about developing basic hand skills and familiarity in playing guitar from printed music. Steve expects a student to be referring to the printed music as they work their way through playing along with the jam tracks. Being able to play a song from memory will be a happy side effect of sufficient practice, but is never a requirement for progressing through the sessions.

I've discovered that the "Recent Status Updates" frame on the main page has a mind of its own. I deleted Mike's (Popeye's) birthday message for me (I love ya, Mike, but who wants to see that every day?), only to find it was replaced by one of Steve's old LL blurbs. Deleting that only displayed the next, even older blurb from Steve. I give up. 🤨

@josev I'm not aware of any errata that have been collected -- other than the Lesson Book's Canon in D that was corrected in the Bonus Book: similar glitch. Steve used Finale to create the music notation, and I've heard him say on multiple occasions that the software sometimes does not generate the correct tab when he places a note on the staff, and he would have to correct it manually. I see what you're referring to, and he probably just didn't notice it. In this instance it should be obvious how to properly fret the strings. Good eye.

@mPasGamer I had to check to be sure, but, no -- the Song Hits set is comprised of 10 DVDs. Each has an introduction, an instruction, and a performance section by Steve. You can, of course, play along with Steve. By definition, on a backing track someone is playing something. But there are no "jam-along" CDs like those found in the L&M Guitar Course.

@dan0725 Dan, yes, those are slurs, as the curved lines connects notes of different pitch. It means the notes are to be sounded legato -- in this instance, I believe as sung, rather than played, from my reading of the lyric and the tab.

Beautiful guitar! I love the sound of a 12-string. Enjoy!

@BenBob Well, hello, stranger! Long time, no see! Good to have you back.

Repeats can be indicated in various ways; one being the measure repeat symbol ( ). Some others are illustrated here.

@ChrisJ032 Chris, here's the exercise by Phil Keaggy that Dave describes above.

@Stefan Hi, Stefan, at this stage, having learned the key signatures, you should be also able to identify all the relative major/relative minor pairs (B major -> G# minor, Eb minor -> Gb major, and so on). I made my own flash cards for this. It's also time (I think) to start learning, in some way, the circle of fifths (here's my recommendation). Steve does not take up this topic directly; he covers an absolute minimum of music theory in the course itself, probably to make it seem less intimidating. Session 9 introduces intervals. This subject, too, is diluted: all the exercises deal with intervals above a pitch; none ask about intervals below a given pitch; and the student is not required to locate any of them on the staff. I see what Steve is doing: he's preparing the student to spell chords in the shortest (ahem) interval possible. But Session 13 is a long time to wait to understand what a triad is. Around this point in the course, I suspect, each of us decides just what our relationship with music theory should be. As for me, I've completed all the theory topics in the course and more. It's worth it. Carry on!

December 10th, 2019 Topic: Learn More Holiday Tunes! 7pm Central Time US Here are the PDFs: Hark the Herald Angels Sing.pdf Away in a Manger.pdf You can watch the lesson HERE. There will be music, laughs, giveaways and more. I look forward to seeing you there! Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE. Hark The Herald Angels Sing.pdf Away-in-a-Manger.pdf

Now the mountain ahead reveals its full, awesome height. Seven years -- 4,151 hours of hiking, as it were -- have put scarcely any distance between me and base camp. I have yet to even set foot on the Khumbu icefall. No, I'm not climbing with oxygen bottles, crampons, and a ladder on my back. I'm practicing guitar. I need not fear -- like anyone who literally approaches Sagarmatha -- being crushed by a block of ice the size of a ten story office building. My guitar mountain is motor skills and music theory, not marble and limestone. Ice won't crush me. But expectations, comparisons, or discouragement just might, as the past year has reminded me. And with this year came a new and disturbing awareness of my age -- so gradually, but oh, so insidiously making its presence felt, as if the grade is steepening. It might take me another seven years to finish the course. Maybe seventeen. Maybe I will never summit my guitar mountain. Yet I'm still climbing, through the disappointments, the mild embarrassments, the setbacks. I rest. I recalibrate. Perhaps my energy and focus aren't quite what they used to be. But I can remind myself that I'm now equipped with three real supports that I didn't have when I originally set out. There’s knowing that I've met every challenge presented so far. Maybe it took five times longer than I expected, but I got there. What’s more, small miracles keep appearing. Help has always materialized when I needed it, sometimes in surprising forms. Best of all, I now find myself surrounded by fellow climbers, beginners and experts, who constantly remind me of the joy to be found on our musical path. They are my sherpas. We have each other's backs. I will never see the Himalaya from Sagarmatha’s summit at 29,000 feet. The mountain gods bestow that privilege upon only a handful of worthy mortals. But I have seen the Himalaya while perched a modest 5,000 feet in the Kathmandu valley: from the magnificent tip of sacred Machapuchare in the west over to the great goddess of the heavens herself. Even from the lowlands, it was breathtaking — a soul-stirring vista worth every step of the trip. So I climb.

@Triple-o This article should answer your questions. The fees that licensing companies and publishers charge will vary, depending on the intended use.

Sherry, I appreciate you thinking of me, but, um, I think you meant to say, "Maria"!

@Oldjock Apparently so. I don't have the app, but I did find this in the online instruction manual. You might want to explore the descriptions of other settings. For optimum readability, it would probably work best on the larger iPad Pro. Scale Instead of making all monospaced fonts in tablature a common size, OnSong provides a scale for the font. This allows the size of the tablature to be adjusted along with the chords and lyrics sizes. Options include values between 30% and 130% in 10% increments. Default is 100% of the size of the chord font size.

@NeilES335 Congratulations, Neil! Quite an accomplishment! Well done! 🙋‍♀️

@zeve Your question comes up regularly as students start out in the course. Steve has addressed it several times here in the forum and on live lessons, and I’ll paraphrase: you can learn to play guitar without learning to read music notation. Tablature has its place, but it is a guitar-specific, limited vocabulary, language. Tablature shows where, and sometimes when, to place the fingers, but it says nothing about why. With tablature, it is all but impossible to see how a bass line or melody moves, what kind of modulation may be taking place, or what intervals or chords are in use. These are in plain view when music is written on the staff, and from there you can often choose your fingerings. Music notation is perhaps the most universally recognized printed language we have. It’s understood by singers, pianists, drummers, trumpet players, and violinists around the world. How tragic it would be to go through life and see nothing on a page of printed music but lines and dots.

Ohhh. That was really ambiguous without context.

Just a reminder: Steve and the Belmont Guitar Ensemble are on tonight, Tuesday, November 19!